Tina Dupuy: Historians agree the best Republican President was also the first: Abraham Lincoln. Who’s second runner up? Which President has represented Republican values best? Easy. President Barack Obama.

The question is whether today’s conservative Republicans understand that they cannot save their party by destroying it. Too many on the right have tried to conciliate a base that craves ideological purity. But ideological purity does not lead to victory. It leads to irrelevance.

Both the Washington Post and The New York Times have that the much-anticipated report of the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) on how the torture memos came to be national policy will recommend not prosecuting Federal Appeals Court Judge Jay Bybee, Steven Bradbury, and John Yoo for enabling the Bush Administration to torture […]

The Obama administration is reluctant to turn over too many rocks in the Bush administration’s conduct in the War on Terror. Obama has pledged to reach a post-partisan nirvana, and Republicans could condemn any investigation of Bush administration abuse of the republic as a partisan witch-hunt. Also, the Obama administration has a conflict of interest […]

Nixon, at least, had Gerald Ford issue his pardon. While the world wondered if Bush would pre-emptively pardon his torture gang on the last day, most forgot… he already did. Well, at least he tried to make sure he would not have to rely on another President’s largesse. This could also explain why Barack Obama […]

On July 2, 2007 George W. Bush commuted the sentence of convicted felon and former top White House staffer Scooter Libby for his convictions on five felony counts of perjury, false statements, and obstruction of justice. He didn’t pardon Libby but, instead, issued a Grant of Executive Clemency before Scooter Libby even served a single […]

by Gene Rothman — Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), in response to the issue of potential legal actions against the Bush administration’s for violations of the U.S, Constitution, wrote: “Thank you for your letter concerning impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush and his authority to grant pardons. I appreciate the time you took to write […]

Few incoming presidents have been left by their predecessors with as many challenges as Barack Obama. In fact, with the daunting terrain facing the incoming president, one wonders why Obama and John McCain even wanted the office. Other presidents facing an uphill task when taking office were (clockwise from upper left): George Washington, who had […]

This week, John Peeler will present “Testaments,” a series of poems that take the form of valedictory statements by each of the postwar presidents, in the poetic manner of Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. Gerald Ford Spiro’s disgrace was my new place. I never dreamed that I would hold that chair made void by […]

LGBT Rights

Irene Monroe: Long before June officially became Gay Pride Month, and October “Coming Out Month” for the LGBTQ community, Halloween was unofficially our yearly celebrated “holiday,” dating as far back at the 1970s when it was a massive annual street party in San Francisco’s Castro district.

The Middle East

Richard Greeman: Anti-government demonstrations spread across Morocco after social media spread the story of Mousine Fikri, a fishmonger crushed to death inside a garbage truck as he tried to block the destruction of a truckload of his fish confiscated by police.